I was curious, there are cars at dealerships that say 'true mileage unknown'. The usual reason for that is broken mileage reader thing. I really don't know how these mileage things work. All I know is that they work with many gears. For example, the mileage stopped at 90k miles, so no one would know how many miles it has. So my question is this, is it possible to have the mileage thing broken? Or did a person break it? Why did the last owner not fix it, what are they trying to hide? Should I or anyone else buy a car, that has no official mileage?

All help, opinions, personal experiences, would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Tom

 

Don't EVER buy a TMU car...EVER. I would buy a salvage title car before I would buy a TMU...and I wouldn't buy a salvage title car either...

If the odo is broken, how was the previous owner able to tell when to change the oil, service other items, etc. I don't think anyone intentionally breaks it and leaves it broken...a TMU is worth less on a trade-in than a high mileage one.

Customers who trade in TMU's often tell me they just didn't care enough to fix it...no malicious intent was involved. Regardless, a TMU is worthless to a dealer and a wholesaler.

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Jason E

'89 Camaro RS
-Medium Grey Metallic
-2.8, A4, T-tops, 94k miles
-Hypertech chip, Accel wires/coil/K&Ns
-Alpine 60x4 and Bostons

'97 Z28
-30th Anniversary package (white with orange stripes)
-LT1, M6, t-tops, 45k miles
-Eclipse CD and 10" Aluminum sub in JL Audio Stealth box, Boston RM speakers, Xtant 403a amp

Speed Kills...Wanna live forever? Drive a Ford.
Long Live #3...

 

Just to help you out a little, it's not a "mileage thing" it's an Odometer... and the little one with the reset button is a Tripmeter...

I would suggest not purchasing a car without official mileage, but look at all our cars, how do we know for sure that the 57000 mile thirdgen we buy hasn't got 157000 or 257000? The only thing to do is check carfax... Anyhow, mileage unknown would be ok for a parts car... but you're talking about functional cars, so just leave them alone unless it's a steal of a deal.

 

In most cases, I would stay away from a car like that. For example though, my girlfriend's 86' VW Jetta stopped at 97,000. My best estimate is that it has 110,000 miles on it now. The oil gets changed every 3-4 months based on an average of 1000 miles per month. This is one of those cases that it's not really worth it to fix it. The car isn't worth that much.

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89 Transam GTA, 350TPI, auto, 3.27 rear, dual cats, gray.
Magnaflow cat-back,
K&N open element,
Best E.T. 14.63@95mph

 

Thanks for the input. I checked out the car I was talking about. It burns oil, paint is bad. Lots of cracks and wear. Shame, shame, its 350 engine. Oh well.

 

I have to disagree about not ever buying a TMU car. My '85 Jetta stopped racking up miles just after 72K.(a common problem with these cars) Between myself and the previous two owners we estimate the mileage at about 275,000. For these cars this is not an outrages number of miles, for a third gen f-body that is one foot in the grave. I would have to say that you have to have a good automotive/mechanical eye, and ear when buying one of these cars. Mileage has never scared me away from a car. I've seen 200k cars that looked and ran sweet, and I've seen 30k cars that couldn't be driven out of a driveway.

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'86 Camaro SC 2.8 V6, 5spd, T-Tops
Mods:

(Performance)
Flowmaster cat back exhaust

(Non-Performance)
Pioneer DEH-P4000 CD receiver head unit
Pioneer 6X9 Tri-Ax speakers
Jensen 8" dual voice coil sub
Blacked out tail lights and side markers (VHT
Nightshades spray tint)

3

 

If you are a very knowledgable and aware buyer, then maybe a TMU isn't such a bad thing. But, many TMUs that I have seen were taken very poor care of..if someone didn't care about it enough to fix the damn odometer so they knew when to do oil changes, etc, who's to say the rest of the car had any care whatsoever?

I realize not everyone shares my perspective...I'm coming from a dealer/wholesaler point of view...